The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday stayed orders passed by various single-judge benches, which had quashed acquisition of various parcels of lands notified by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for the formation of Banashankari (BSK) 5th stage layout while declaring the scheme had lapsed.
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice L. Narayana Swamy and Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar passed the order after hearing several appeals filed by the BDA questioning the single-judge bench orders passed in 2016.
The single-judge benches had quashed acquisition of lands belonging to several petitioners while declaring that the BDA’s BSK 5th stage layout scheme had lapsed as the authority had failed to implement the scheme substantially within a period of five years as per Section 27 of the BDA Act.
It was noticed by the single-judge benches that though the BDA notified 1,458 acres across several villages in 1997, only around 116 acres were actually utilised for formation of the layout, and around 205 acres were denotified while observing that it cannot be said that the scheme has been implemented substantially when the layout was formed using only 116 acres in 17 years.
However, the BDA, in its appeal has contended that it could not utilise a large portion of the notified lands as around 544 acres remained under litigation.